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14 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Yes! Yes! Cruise missiles are cheap and readily available technology that Taiwan can develop itself. No more dreaming of ridiculously expensive subs unless Taiwan plans to design and build them itself.

But WTF is up with "Simmering tensions". The underdog building defenses decreases tensions, not increases them...

The HF-2E is about time. I had also once heard rumors that the HF-3 (Mach 3 seaskimmer) could be adapted for land-attack purposes, but I question the accuracy or feasibility of such a venture.

The HF-3 should definitely be mass-produced at any rate. Taiwan invests too much effort in high-tech R&D for too little output or result, sometimes. It's like researching for a decade, and then producing only 10 airplanes instead of a production run of 200 or 500.

You mean Ma's plan to make an unpopular agreement with China that does not have majority approval, put it through the legislature controlled by his party, avoid democratic oversight, garner support from confused, ignorant, and venal foreigners who think he is creating "peace", and gain the backing of the global financial industry in his quest to sell out the island's interests?

Your comparison is fatuous for a number of reasons:1. Ma was elected by a clear majority of the Taiwanese people on an explicit platform of signing an agreement to create a common market with China. He therefore had a clear mandate to sign ECFA. No such mandate exists to sign away ROC sovereignty to the PRC.2.ECFA may not have the support of an absolute majority according to recent polls, but support for ECFA leads the opposition by a considerable margin.If we exclude "don't knows", ECFA has a clear majority. In contrast, reunification has the support of only around 10% of the population.3. Many foreigners support ECFA, but they would not be willing to support reunification. The two proposals are entirely different in nature.

1. Ma was elected on an explicit platform to spur the economy by moving closer to China. The Common Market rhetoric was unpopular and soon dropped.

2. Now you're being fatuous. No serious poll has ever achieved a majority for ECFA. At most you can say approve outweighs disapprove, but we both know that the DK/NA portion contains a large lump of closeted Greens.

3. A group of pro-Taiwan academics swung through Europe a couple of years ago. In western euopre the refrain was "when are you guys going to reunify so we can all make money?" There is lots of distant foreign sentiment for annexation because they all think China will turn up sweet. Boy are they stupid.

4. It is quite true that nobody wants to be annexed to the PRC. It is an important source of hope. But the KMT simply ignores public sentiment whenever it wants to move closer to China and also ignores democratic practice. And there are many ways Ma can place Taiwan under PRC sovereignty (secret agreements, etc).

1. Ma was elected on an explicit platform to spur the economy by moving closer to China. The Common Market rhetoric was unpopular and soon dropped.

Ma actually said that a common market could not be achieved with China in the short term. Instead, he said he would make the common market a long term goal. Ma said he would first sign a "comprehensive economic co-operation agreement" with China (綜合經濟合作協定).

These are Ma's comments from the TV debate 12 days before the election.Source: http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/taiwan/archives/2008/03/10/2003404867

As you can see, he makes his intentions very clear. Ma clearly had an electoral mandate to sign ECFA.

Ma: I advise Mr Hsieh to focus his energy on the content of the "cross-strait common market" rather than its title. Mr Siew's cross-strait common market would involve cross-strait economic negotiations on equal terms and seek to expand the nation's economy by gradually integrating it with China's and ultimately connecting with the global market.We will not only cooperate with China, but also seek to sign free-trade agreements [FTAs] with the US, Japan, South Korea and ASEAN countries, especially Singapore.The cross-strait common market is a long-term goal and we would start by signing an economic agreement. A presidential candidate with vision should not attack the title of a policy.A cross-strait common market would not sell out Taiwan. No country in the EU was sold out by the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 or the Treaty of Rome in 1957.I would not allow Chinese workers to work in Taiwan. Until 1985, the EU granted a visa-free [mechanism for workers] to only six countries. Opening up the labor market is not a necessary element for a common market.A cross-strait common market cannot be achieved in a short time. We need to sign an economic cooperation agreement and solve the issues of investment protection, such as avoiding dual taxation.

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